Epic Games wages legal war against Apple and Google after tech giants removed Fortnite from app stores

Epic Games is gearing up to fight to the finish against Apple and Google for removing Fortnite from their app stores.

The Cary, N.C.-based video game developer is slapping the tech giants with a lawsuit, claiming the two companies sniped its critically acclaimed game out of pure greed, Market Watch reports.

Epic states that Apple and Google take roughly 30% of all in-game purchases from apps downloaded from their respective stores but when they offered players a discount on in-game purchases — with the stipulation they had to pay Epic directly — Fortnite became unavailable.

Both companies said the new deal violated their guidelines and players who downloaded the game through their stores have since been locked out of the app.

Market analysts reportedly tracked in-game purchases made on iOS since the start of 2020 and determined Fortnite accrued roughly $1 billion in player spending through mid-May.

Amit Daryanani, an analyst at Evercore, told the business outlet that the figures translates to Apple making $30 million a month on Fortnite purchases alone.

In its suit against Apple, Epic states it plans “to end Apple’s unfair and anticompetitive actions that Apple undertakes to unlawfully maintain its monopoly.”

“Google has eliminated competition in the distribution of Android apps using myriad contractual and technical barriers,” Epic said of the search engine behemoth.

The company has resorted to social media and is running the hashtag #FreeFortnite.

It also came out swinging against Apple by parodying its 1984 Super Bowl commercial, which rallied against a lack of innovation, on YouTube.

Both Apple and Google say they are open to working with Epic to come to a resolution.

But the game company made it clear they’re not interested and aim to take down, what they believe is, a monopoly.

Boasting more than 350 million users worldwide, Fortnite is a free-to-play battle royale game — where a large number of players start a match and the last one who survives wins.

Epic Games was valued at more than $17 billion in 2020, according to Bloomberg.

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